Morgenthaler Ventures Announce Winners of the DC to VC 2013: HIT Startup Showcase
Amplify Health and Kinsa Take Cash Awards for Most Venture Back-able Companies in Health IT

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Morgenthaler Ventures, a premier venture capital firm, and Health 2.0 today announced the winners of DC to VC's HIT Startup Showcase, a contest that identifies the promising health IT startups seeking funding. After eight on-stage presentations in front of leading venture capitalists, angel investors, government officials and entrepreneurs, the judges selected Amplify Health as the winner of the enterprise solutions category and Kinsa as the winner of the consumer solutions category.

Said Rebecca Lynn, Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures and the Canvas Venture Fund, "We are thrilled at how much this conference has grown since we first organized it four years ago. Not only are there more health IT entrepreneurs today, these entrepreneurs are more experienced and tackling bigger, more intransigent problems."

"On the eve of Obamacare going into effect tomorrow, innovation driven by health IT startups is more urgent and relevant than ever," said Nate Gross, co-founder of Doximity, and moderator of the event's policy panel. The panel included Farzad Mostashari, who was most recently the head of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The two People's Choice winners were Benefitter and OMSignal.

The 8 finalists of the DC to VC: HIT Startup Showcase were grouped into two categories:

Enterprise category: The startup has a product that is sold to hospitals, medical groups, doctors, large integrated delivery systems (IDNs), insurance companies.

Consumer category: The startup has a product that is used by consumers (patients) and is paid for by various monetization strategies.

The winner in each category received a cash prize of $10,000.

Winners were hand-picked by a panel of providers from (Dignity Health), employers (Google and Safeway Health) and large telecomm and device companies (Philips and Sprint) using strict criteria.

"With over 100 applications this year, the pipeline for health IT startups has never been more impressive. This year we saw way more mature companies who spanned across enterprise and consumer solutions," said Missy Krasner, Executive in Residence (EIR) at Morgenthaler Ventures, and former Google Health founding member.

Headquartered in New York City, Kinsa is creating the world's first real-time map of human health. With it, they empower society with information to track and stop the spread of disease, and simultaneously transform the way people care for their children, families and communities. Their first product is an ultra-low-cost smartphone-connected thermometer. https://www.kinsahealth.com/

People's Choice Winners

Benefitter – People's Choice in the Enterprise Category

Benefitter is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for agents, brokers, consultants, employers and employees. It helps users navigate the evolving world of health insurance and healthcare reform. http://www.benefitter.com/

OMSignal – People's Choice in the Consumer Category

The company offers apparel that continuously tracks biometrics to help connect to a fitter, healthier, happier consumer. It monitors heart rate, breathing and activity and displays data in real-time on a mobile phone. http://www.omsignal.com/

Sandstone Diagnostics – A biotech company that has developed Trak, a consumer semen analysis platform for men managing fertility issues. It provides a simple and accurate way to monitor sperm quality from the comfort of a consumer's home.

About Morgenthaler Ventures

Morgenthaler Ventures is a premier venture capital firm, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build valuable companies for more than 45 years. Morgenthaler has invested in more than 300 companies in the information technology and life science sectors. Past and present portfolio companies in the IT space include:Doximity,Practice Fusion, Evernote, Siri, Lending Club, Apple and NEXTEL. Representative life science companies include: Ardian, IPC – The Hospitalist Company, OncoMed, Catalyst Biosciences, Transcend, and GlobeImmune. Morgenthaler Ventures is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA.www.morgenthaler.com/information-technology/

About Health 2.0

The conference. The media network. The innovation community. The Health 2.0 Conference is the leading showcase of cutting-edge innovation transforming the healthcare system. Since its beginning in 2007, Health 2.0 has served as a community resource for search and online tools to help consumers manage their health and connect to providers. Now that the industry has caught up, Health 2.0 covers the entire cloud, web, mobile and unplatforms technology revolution that is shaking up every sector of health care. For more, visithttp://www.health2con.com